Self
by Cassandra Mulder
Summary: Takes place during "City of Blood". When Oliver is finally found, how can he and Felicity accept everything they're about to lose?
1. Selfless

**Title:** Self...  
**Author:** Cassandra  
**Rated:** T  
**Classification:** Arrow; Oliver/Felicity; angst; romance  
**Spoilers:** City of Blood (2x21), takes place during episode  
**Summary:** Takes place during "City of Blood". When Oliver is finally found, how can he and Felicity accept everything they're about to lose?  
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing, I just like to play in the Arrow sandbox now and again.  
**A/N:** This came to me after "City of Blood", and THAT scene between Oliver and Felicity as he is going off to his death and she is begging him not to. This is Oliver's POV, with Felicity's to follow. I hope you enjoy, and if so, feedback is love. :)

**Selfless**

She says there has to be another way, and he wants to believe her. She can make him believe just about anything, because he can see the way she believes in him. He looks at her and wishes that he could have that kind of faith in himself; that he could do what she thinks he can do.

But the only way he sees out of this personal hell is to give himself up. If he ends it with himself, then no one else he loves will have to die. At least he hopes that Slade will be satisfied with his revenge.

She doesn't want him to go, but Felicity isn't one to make a melodramatic scene. He reaches for her, both of her hands enveloping his, and she's so close that all he can do is stare into her eyes like he has so many times before. It would be so easy to stay and take her down with him, but she deserves better than that.

She deserves better than him, and while he knows that losing him will hurt her badly, he hopes that she finds what she needs because he knows it can't be him. In another life he knows what a gift it would be to be with her, to love her the way he can't allow himself to in this life, but this is the one they have.

He holds her hand, and he unconsciously makes the tiniest move forward, because he knows the one regret in his recent past will be never having kissed her. As he looks from her eyes to her lips and back again, he knows he can't do that to her. She is worth more than a moment of desperation on his last day on earth, because he should have opened himself to the truth and been with her when it counted. It was too late now, and he couldn't make this harder on her than it already was.

He walks away from her for the last time, grasping her hand as far as she can reach before her fingers finally slip from his.

He thinks he picked a hell of a time to finally be selfless.

**(1/2)**


	2. Selfish

For days all she has wanted to do is find him, shake him, make him realize that every time something terrible happens he cannot leave the people who care about him. But when she sees him, when she finally knows that he is safe, all the anger and fear dissolves into worry, and she reaffirms what she has known all along – he is her weakness no matter the cost. He is always going to be.

Oliver walks toward them, and he looks so tired, so profoundly broken, that all she wants to do is hold him. No matter what he did to supposedly provoke this heartless madman bent on revenge, Felicity knows he doesn't deserve this. On the island so many of his choices were mistaken or taken away that she wonders who could blame him for anything he had to do to survive.

He is saying he's going to sacrifice himself to end this war with Slade, and she barely hears herself trying to talk him out of it over the roaring of blood in her ears. He can't just lie down and die, not as she stands in front of him and pleads with him not to. She knows there has to be another way. She tells him there has to be. They always find one.

This time he isn't listening, and she fights the panic that rises up in her throat. He starts to walk away, but he turns to her and looks into her eyes so long that she has trouble breathing. A part of her wants what she hopes he might be thinking, and the rest of her wants to scream, _No, not like this!_

He takes her hand, and she holds onto him with both of hers. He breaks the moment and tells her there is no other way. As he turns to walk away from her forever, she holds on as long as she can until she loses his grasp.

She keeps her composure on the outside, but on the inside all she wants to do is scream and rage and stomp her feet like a child. How can he just leave her here alone after he promised she wasn't going to lose him? How is she supposed to live with him just giving up this fight that has been everything to them for the last two years?

She wants to run after him. She wants to cry and beg, and have Diggle knock him out and take him somewhere they can make him see sense. She wants to tell him that he has to live – for the city, for Thea, for his friends.

For her.

For once in her life, she wants to be selfish.


End file.
